By Dan Hirshberg

When 8-year-old John Fenimore heard that his dad had been given a couple of tickets to the New York Yankees’ last home game of the 1961 season, he was as excited as any baseball-crazed young boy could be. For the kid who would later become one of Northwest Jersey’s top high school baseball coaches, it was something special just to go to a game—any game. It didn’t matter that in his Netcong household the National League ruled. But of course, the Dodgers were long gone from Brooklyn and the Mets were a year away from becoming a reality. For now, a Yankee game would have to suffice. 

“I was not a real big Yankee fan,” said Fenimore, the former head baseball coach at Belvidere and Warren Hills, or for many years, the assistant coach at Hackettstown. “That wasn’t how it was in our house.”

The Sunday, Oct. 1, game against the Boston Red Sox would be Fenimore’s second trip to Yankee Stadium. In July of that year he saw the Yankees lose both ends of a doubleheader against the Baltimore Orioles.   

His third major league game would be much more memorable, Yankee fan or not. This was the game that Roger Maris would hit his 61st homer of the year to break Babe Ruth’s single season record.

Fenimore attended the game with his father, Guilio, thanks to a cousin who got them the tickets. They were joined by some 23,000 fans and had choice field level box seats behind home plate to the third base side.  

The Yankees had already clinched the American League pennant by then and were preparing to play the National League champs, the Cincinnati Reds, in the World Series. While Fenimore was happy to be there, the contest “was just a ballgame, not a big deal,” he thought at the time.  

In the bottom of the first inning, Fenimore had an inkling that there was more to it, though he didn’t grasp the full extent of it.

“When Maris got up the first time they were booing after some pitches,” remembered Fenimore. “I asked my father, ‘Why are they booing?’  He said because it was a ball.”

The lefty-batting Maris eventually flied out deep to left.

Everything changed in a big way for Fenimore in the bottom of the fourth when Maris faced Tracy Stallard for the second time. With one out Maris smashed a shot into the short porch in right field. Home Run No. 61!

“When Maris hit the homer everybody stood up and was cheering – my father too,” he recalled. “I said to him, ‘Why are you cheering – we don’t like the Yankees.'” 

Fenimore distinctly also remembered looking up into the press box as Maris rounded the bases and seeing Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto talking into the microphone. Later, with the Executive Club passes they got with the tickets, he recalled seeing Rizzuto again in the packed wall to wall room and watching as the still hyped up “Scooter” held court with people surrounding him.

The homer would turn out to be the only run of the game for the Yankees. Maris came up two times more, striking out in the sixth and popping out to second in the eighth inning.

The game that wasn’t a “big deal” clearly was a big deal after Maris homered.

A day later, Fenimore and his father celebrated another “big deal.” You have to look closely, but you can definitely see the two of them in a photo printed in the New York Times that was taken by Tony Triolo. That photo later was also featured in a Sports Illustrated article. Fenimore (wearing a white shirt and holding a scorecard) is next to his father, to his left. Ironically a couple of seats to their right were Jim O’Toole and Joey Jay, Game 1 and 2 starters for Cincinnati in the upcoming World Series showdown (which New York won in 5 games—Jay was the only Red to win).

Years later, Fenimore got a framed copy of the famous photo as a Father’s Day gift.

“I got a real kick of out of that,” he said. The photo – and the memory – is a kick that reverberates to this day, nearly 60 years later.